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08.22.2011 0

A Department of Jobs? Really?

By Rebecca DiFede – The economy is slowly circling the drain, and jobs are about has hard to find as a dropped earring in a ball pit, however according to an article in the New York Times, we shouldn’t worry because our president may have come up with a solution.

This trial balloon promised to, upon implementation, make great strides in the job market and help to stem the unemployment overflow.  A new government agency with the clever title “The Department of Jobs” would have been created.  Another proposed name would have been “The Department of Competitiveness”.  That’s not a joke.

Except, in a way, it is a joke.  It’s an idea so dumb that one almost wishes the Obama Administration would follow through with it just so its sheer stupidity could be on display for all to see.  With unemployment above 9 percent still, the longest period of sustained high joblessness since the Great Depression, the American people are through with the gimmicks.

They’ll probably never do it, but just consider the concept.  This new organization would have been responsible for the creation of new jobs. Which would actually require Obama to do something to create them, or does he think that because the agency specifically mentions jobs, they will magically appear? Has Obama considered how government might be getting in the way of private production?

The department would have reportedly resulted from a merger of the Department of Commerce, United States Trade Representative and some economic divisions of the State Department.

However, this begs the question as an aside: if what we are missing is the Department of Jobs, what exactly does the Department of Labor do?

When asked to comment on the possible new department, former Department of Labor official Don Todd of Americans for Limited Government stated, “We already have a Department of Commerce that doesn’t create any commerce, a Department of Education that doesn’t educate anybody, and the ‘Healthy, Wealthy and Wise’ Commission at the Department of Health and Welfare that doesn’t contribute to anyone’s health or welfare…I think we should call it the Department of Redundancy Department. That would make more sense.”

Obama’s great solution to every problem seems to be to just create a committee or agency responsible for that problem, where he can then appoint some of his minions to get to work not solving it. His fervent insistence that he can create jobs without actually putting forth any action from which jobs would result is ludicrous.

Even if all our illustrious president settles on is to release a new stimulus plan, with more spending and borrowing, it’s a joke.  Reports now indicate Obama’s plan will include increased spending for construction and roads, and providing mortgage relief to families who are in danger of foreclosure (because that worked so well the last time we tried it).

In an article in the Washington Post, Obama made his classic argument for increasing spending because it will somehow be good for our ever-widening budget deficit, “We can’t afford to do just one or the other, we’ve got to do both…we should not have to choose between getting our fiscal house in order and jobs and growth”.  Of course, Obama has no intention of actually reducing the debt, he would rather just talk about how it’s a problem and how we really should get around to fixing it, just as soon as he’s finished wasting some more of our money.

Perhaps we should focus on spending less and — gasp — cutting taxes, so that job creation and growth can actually occur (and creating a new agency with the word ‘jobs’ in it doesn’t count).

With Gallup reporting a 40 percent overall approval rating, and only 26 percent of American’s approving of the way he’s handling the economy , it would be wise for Obama to stop creating new departments or spending programs to hide his problems in and listen to the people.

If Obama doesn’t begin to produce a sensible economic plan soon that also gets us out of the deficit hole, it will be he that drowns in it.

Rebecca DiFede is a contributing editor to Americans for Limited Government.

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